The problem of oligarchy is a problem of undue influence of wealth on politics. This problem takes a specific form in liberal-democratic, capitalist regimes. The daily spectacle of the Trump-Musk billionaire duo is just a particularly stark example—as was perhaps to be expected in a country traditionally relaxed about the role of money in politics.

But that hasty comparative judgment obscures the more fundamental problem: can we decouple wealth from political power at all?

A standard answer says that we can, roughly by capping wealth at a fairly low level. Much of the debate on “limitarianism” centres on this approach. Here the problem isn’t inequality per se, but disparities that turn quantitative power differentials into qualitative ones. In other words, when wealth provides access to power or exemption from justice which comes down to a different kind of citizenship. Another strategy is to develop class-specific political institutions that suppress or at least counter oligarchic power. There are many proposals for “plebeian” institutions—loosely inspired by the Roman tribunate of the plebs—that are meant to eliminate or curb oligarchic excesses. For instance, theorists have proposed census-based or randomly selected deliberative bodies with the power to review tax avoidance and to intervene on other levers of oligarchic power.

We can think of both of those approaches—the limitarian and the plebeian one—as broadly liberal or reformist, at least when addressed to North-Atlantic and other liberal democracies. That is to say, they are correctives to existing pathologies that seek to leave many of the fundamentals of liberal democracy in place, even though they envisage liberal democracies with radically different outcomes relative to those we see today.

In another sense, though, the two approaches are quite different. Limitarianism is hopeful that the problem of unequal political influence can be mitigated if it is ensured that wealth inequalities are not excessive. To the extent that it is based on the idea of fair limits to wealth, it wishes to fight power with a moral idea. The plebeian approach focuses on the political realm and wealth-based possibilities to shape it. We may say that it is more realistic, in the sense that it seeks to understand how oligarchic power operates in order to counter it with institutional arrangements that may be theoretically messy but are optimized for maximum impact.

At any rate, the question still remains whether either approach—even when successful—can deliver a postoligarchic democratic future. There is reason for caution because there is another, insidious aspect of oligarchic power that we haven’t touched upon yet. We may call this the ideological aspect. Even vast reductions in wealth inequality and structures of political counter-power do not eliminate hierarchical stratification in society. There will still be people to look up to, as it were. People whose voices will ring out louder, because in a hierarchical society even relatively small wealth differentials can be converted into important status differentials. So we may say that the ideological aspect of oligarchy reveals how the problem of oligarchy is not just a problem of economic inequality, but of the interaction between economic and status inequalities. This leads to an epistemic problem: crudely, those at the top of social hierarchies get to spread ideas, beliefs and dispositions favorable to them, and so rig the political game in their favor. And they are not exempted from the effects of this rigging, either. It comes back to distort their own beliefs in the form of motivated reasoning. Maybe it is not megalomania but rather the distorting effects of motivated reasoning that lie at the bottom of what already Aristotle viewed as oligarchs’ signature belief: that their superiority in wealth indicates their overall superiority, and so their entitlement to rule.

One doesn’t need ultra-concentrated media ownership by billionaires to achieve that. Unaccountable bureaucracies can also produce similar effects. More generally, most known historical states have been oligarchic in the sense that one class’s superior position has enabled it to—wittingly or unwittingly—distort our perception of the social world, thereby hampering our capacity to make good political decisions. As power is usually a limited resource, such hampering has helped this class translate their wealth into political power. Whether oligarchs use this power directly to rule or whether they remain in the background while political elites run the state, does not affect this aspect of their power. Hierarchies and concentrated forms of power enable oligarchy and prevent us from developing our full potential as knowers—and, therefore, as doers—in the social world. This is an epistemic argument against hierarchy, not a moral one, and so it is a realist argument.

Does the argument suggest that a non-oligarchic democratic future requires anarchy? Not quite. But if we are to take the ideological aspect of oligarchy seriously, and really try to fully decouple wealth from politics, the argument does point towards a radically less stratified form of political organization than what most of us are accustomed to. The limitarian and plebeian remedies discussed above can be useful for damage control but are probably not the panacea. A democratic future free from oligarchy requires a broader strategy against wealth inequality, and against hierarchy more broadly conceived. We may simply not know yet what is possible. We should be open to more fundamental changes to the political conditions that shape the ways in which we understand the social world.

The post To Protect Democracy from Oligarchy We Must Fight Inequality, but also Hierarchy first appeared on Blog of the APA.

Read the full article which is published on APA Online (external link)